'The Things They Carried' focus of area's latest Big Read

Published: Sunday, January 12, 2014 at 12:30 a.m.

Last Modified: Friday, January 10, 2014 at 12:35 p.m.

A list of events for this week is available at the end of this article.

Facts

The Big Read is part of a national program funded by the National Endowment for the Arts, a federal agency, in partnership with Arts Midwest. In Wilmington, the 2013-2014 Big Read is presented by Cape Fear Museum, sponsored by WHQR public radio, Wilmington Design Company and StarNews Media.

'It occurred to me one day, doing the laundry," said author Tim O'Brien, "remembering the feel of the pack and what we were carrying down the road."

O'Brien, 67, had been an infantryman in the Army's 23rd, or "Americal" Division, and he served a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. He knew about toting packs.

"When you're carrying 70, 80, 90 pounds on your back, day in and day out, nobody else has an idea what that does to you," he said. "You get tired enough, and you start to get a little careless. You throw stuff away. It starts altering your judgment."

From that memory, O'Brien developed one of his most famous short stories, "The Things They Carried," telling the story of an infantry platoon like the one he served in, simply by listing what the GIs were carrying.

"The Things They Carried" became the first in a cycle of stories about an infantry platoon (including an enlisted man named "Tim O'Brien"), mixing fiction with O'Brien's actual experiences. The collection, which came out in 1990, became a Pulitzer Prize finalist and won many other awards.

Now, "The Things They Carried" is the focus of Wilmington's latest Big Read, a campaign to encourage local readers to tackle the book. Two months of discussion groups, exhibits and other events will climax on Wednesday, when O'Brien delivers a keynote lecture at 7 p.m. in UNCW's Kenan Auditorium. Admission is free, but those planning to attend must request tickets from the Kenan Auditorium box office (see 1D for more information).

Among other appearances, O'Brien will also attend a welcoming reception 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Northeast Regional Library, 1241 Military Cutoff Road. Admission is free.

A Minnesota native who grew up in a town billed as "the turkey capital of the world," O'Brien was drafted just after graduating from Macalester College.

His service, he noted, was rather different from the experience of those who served later, in Iraq and Afghanistan. He and many of his fellow Vietnam vets were draftees; the new generation of veterans is composed entirely of enlistees. He served one year "in country" as part of a two-year hitch. Today's soldiers and Marines sign up for much longer enlistments, he noted, and many of them have gone back for three or more tours of duty in combat.

"I just can't imagine that," O'Brien said.

In other ways, however, the experience of the grunt on the ground has not changed all that much, he added.

"The country's your enemy," O'Brien said. "When you're shot at, the enemy blends in to the landscape. You can't find the enemy, and the enemy finds you.

"In Vietnam, the number one cause of casualties, by far, was land mines. Now, they're called IEDs (the acronymn for 'improvised explosive device'). You can't shoot back at a land mine."

After serving his tour, O'Brien went to graduate school at Harvard ("one of very few Vietnam veterans there at that time," he noted on his website, "much less Combat Infantry Badge holders"). He then took an internship at the Washington Post and embarked on a reporting career.

The Vietnam experience, however, fueled much of his writing, beginning with his 1973 memoir "If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home." (Old-timers will recall that couplet was a Vietnam-era marching chant.) He followed that in 1978 with "Going After Cacciato," a sometimes surreal novel about GIs in Vietnam. It won the National Book Award.

O'Brien would write other books not linked directly to Vietnam – many of them derived from his youthful experiences in Worthington, Minn. Communicating the combat experience, however, would remain a concern.

"You don't have to be in the military to know that war is something horrible," O'Brien said. "War, after all, is nothing but the legalized killing of human beings.

"The difficulty for most of us, though, is that kind of knowledge is pretty abstract. OK, 'War is Hell.' But what does that mean? The only option is the story, by which you can convey the sensations so that you feel you're actually in the event. It's one thing to say the Vietnam War was chaotic; it's something else to feel trapped in that chaos."

The last few years have been good for O'Brien. In 2012, he won the lifetime achievement award from the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Earlier this year, he received the Pritzker Military Library Award, a literary prize with a $100,000 honorarium.

He continues to teach creative writing as a visiting professor at Southwest Texas State University.

O'Brien, who has children ages 10 and 8, said he's spent "the last five years or so working on a book about being an older father."

In part, he added, the book is a meditation on mortality and a message to his children. "I wanted to tell them things about themselves that they're not going to remember, because they're too little."

EVENTS THIS WEEK

Book discussion of "The Things They Carried," 6:30 p.m. Monday at Myrtle Grove Library, 5155 S. College Road. Coordinator for the event will be librarian Rachel Langlois. Langlois, who is married to a Marine helicopter pilot, was a librarian with the University of the Marine Corps at Quantinco, Va. Admission is free.

Prologue Book Club: A discussion of "The Things They Carried," featuring author Rebecca Lee, 7 p.m. Monday in the WHQR studios, upstairs at 254 N. Front St. Admission is free; refreshments will be served. 343-2208

Welcome reception for author Tim O'Brien, 6-8 p.m. Tuesday at Northeast Regional Library, 1241 Military Cutoff Road. According to the library, '60s dress is encouraged, and music from the Vietnam War era will be played. Admission is free.

Keynote lecture by Tim O'Brien, author of "The Things They Carried," 7 p.m. Wednesday in Kenan Auditorium on the campus of the University of North Carolina. A book signing will follow. Admission is free, but tickets are required. A limit of four tickets per person will be enforced. To obtain tickets, visit the Kenan Auditorium box office or call 962-3500.

<p><i> A list of events for this week is available at the end of this article.</i></p><p>'It occurred to me one day, doing the laundry," said author Tim O'Brien, "remembering the feel of the pack and what we were carrying down the road."</p><p>O'Brien, 67, had been an infantryman in the Army's 23rd, or "Americal" Division, and he served a tour of duty in Vietnam in 1969 and 1970. He knew about toting packs.</p><p>"When you're carrying 70, 80, 90 pounds on your back, day in and day out, nobody else has an idea what that does to you," he said. "You get tired enough, and you start to get a little careless. You throw stuff away. It starts altering your judgment."</p><p>From that memory, O'Brien developed one of his most famous short stories, "The Things They Carried," telling the story of an infantry platoon like the one he served in, simply by listing what the GIs were carrying.</p><p>"The Things They Carried" became the first in a cycle of stories about an infantry platoon (including an enlisted man named "Tim O'Brien"), mixing fiction with O'Brien's actual experiences. The collection, which came out in 1990, became a Pulitzer Prize finalist and won many other awards.</p><p>Now, "The Things They Carried" is the focus of Wilmington's latest Big Read, a campaign to encourage local readers to tackle the book. Two months of discussion groups, exhibits and other events will climax on Wednesday, when O'Brien delivers a keynote lecture at 7 p.m. in <a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic71"><b>UNCW</b></a>'s <a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic9947"><b>Kenan Auditorium</b></a>. Admission is free, but those planning to attend must request tickets from the Kenan Auditorium box office (see 1D for more information). </p><p>Among other appearances, O'Brien will also attend a welcoming reception 6 p.m. Tuesday at the Northeast Regional Library, 1241 Military Cutoff Road. Admission is free.</p><p>A Minnesota native who grew up in a town billed as "the turkey capital of the world," O'Brien was drafted just after graduating from Macalester College. </p><p>His service, he noted, was rather different from the experience of those who served later, in Iraq and Afghanistan. He and many of his fellow Vietnam vets were draftees; the new generation of veterans is composed entirely of enlistees. He served one year "in country" as part of a two-year hitch. Today's soldiers and Marines sign up for much longer enlistments, he noted, and many of them have gone back for three or more tours of duty in combat.</p><p>"I just can't imagine that," O'Brien said.</p><p>In other ways, however, the experience of the grunt on the ground has not changed all that much, he added.</p><p>"The country's your enemy," O'Brien said. "When you're shot at, the enemy blends in to the landscape. You can't find the enemy, and the enemy finds you.</p><p>"In Vietnam, the number one cause of casualties, by far, was land mines. Now, they're called IEDs (the acronymn for 'improvised explosive device'). You can't shoot back at a land mine."</p><p>After serving his tour, O'Brien went to graduate school at Harvard ("one of very few Vietnam veterans there at that time," he noted on his website, "much less Combat Infantry Badge holders"). He then took an internship at the Washington Post and embarked on a reporting career.</p><p>The Vietnam experience, however, fueled much of his writing, beginning with his 1973 memoir "If I Die in a Combat Zone, Box Me Up and Ship Me Home." (Old-timers will recall that couplet was a Vietnam-era marching chant.) He followed that in 1978 with "Going After Cacciato," a sometimes surreal novel about GIs in Vietnam. It won the National Book Award.</p><p>O'Brien would write other books not linked directly to Vietnam – many of them derived from his youthful experiences in Worthington, Minn. Communicating the combat experience, however, would remain a concern.</p><p>"You don't have to be in the military to know that war is something horrible," O'Brien said. "War, after all, is nothing but the legalized killing of human beings.</p><p>"The difficulty for most of us, though, is that kind of knowledge is pretty abstract. OK, 'War is Hell.' But what does that mean? The only option is the story, by which you can convey the sensations so that you feel you're actually in the event. It's one thing to say the Vietnam War was chaotic; it's something else to feel trapped in that chaos."</p><p>The last few years have been good for O'Brien. In 2012, he won the lifetime achievement award from the Dayton Literary Peace Prize. Earlier this year, he received the Pritzker Military Library Award, a literary prize with a $100,000 honorarium.</p><p>He continues to teach creative writing as a visiting professor at Southwest Texas State University.</p><p>O'Brien, who has children ages 10 and 8, said he's spent "the last five years or so working on a book about being an older father." </p><p>In part, he added, the book is a meditation on mortality and a message to his children. "I wanted to tell them things about themselves that they're not going to remember, because they're too little."</p><p><a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic14"><b>Ben Steelman</b></a>: 343-2208</p><h3>EVENTS THIS WEEK</h3>
<p>Book discussion of "The Things They Carried," 6:30 p.m. Monday at Myrtle Grove Library, 5155 S. College Road. Coordinator for the event will be librarian Rachel Langlois. Langlois, who is married to a Marine helicopter pilot, was a librarian with the University of the Marine Corps at Quantinco, Va. Admission is free.</p><p>Prologue Book Club: A discussion of "The Things They Carried," featuring author Rebecca Lee, 7 p.m. Monday in the WHQR studios, upstairs at 254 N. Front St. Admission is free; refreshments will be served. 343-2208</p><p>Welcome reception for author Tim O'Brien, 6-8 p.m. Tuesday at Northeast Regional Library, 1241 Military Cutoff Road. According to the library, '60s dress is encouraged, and music from the Vietnam War era will be played. Admission is free.</p><p>Keynote lecture by Tim O'Brien, author of "The Things They Carried," 7 p.m. Wednesday in <a href="http://www.starnewsonline.com/section/topic9947"><b>Kenan Auditorium</b></a> on the campus of the University of North Carolina. A book signing will follow. Admission is free, but tickets are required. A limit of four tickets per person will be enforced. To obtain tickets, visit the Kenan Auditorium box office or call 962-3500. </p><p>– Ben Steelman</p>